I was going to write a little about the new Dark Souls game and I even had a couple of paragraphs tossed out where I compared it to evil, undead Chuck Norris and sent Hidetaka Miyazaki on a coffee break.

(It has been a strange day)

Then I wanted coffee myself and was running out of time and…ugh…just have look at the cool cinematic for Dark Souls 3.

Dark Souls 3 will be available in Japan on March 24, 2016 and in the US on April 12, 2016 – for PC, Xbox One and PS4.

It’s Reset Day on Destiny and the Nightfall is Dust Palace (I know, I know) with solar burn, epic, ironclad, (sigh) brawler and airborne. Airborne is nice but brawler against ironclad is kind of worthless. Still, it is a chance to pull out your solar Long Far Gone and your sword and wreak havoc on Flayers.

The Weekly Crucible is Iron Banner Rift. Yes, I said Rift.

(Those of you who play solo might want to consider playing the Division beta this weekend instead)

Okay, this is very simple. Repeat this over and over until it burns a hole in your brain. Rift is not Clash. You get more points for picking up the Spark than for shooting the other team. Pick up the spark, carry it as far as you can run and even if they shoot you down you are positive point-wise. Add 1500 points for igniting the spark and it is easy to lose if you only play for kills . Again, this is not Clash.

Saladin will have class items and chest armor as well as the IB Scout and Fusion rifles and all of those are also possible drops.

In the non-Destiny word, Japan gets a Pikachu detective game on 3DS (dropping Feb 3, 2016) but no word on when or if it will release in the US.

The holiday weekend threw my time sense off and I missed the weekly reset for Destiny. The Nightfall this week is Fallen S.A.B.E.R. with ‘grounded’ (because why not stand on the electrified floor) chaff, trickle and small arms. The Weekly Crucible is Zone Control (hold your captured zones or you won’t gain enough points on kills to win).

Xur is in the Vanguard Hall this week. (where Cayde and the Vanguard leaders hang out) Continuing his streak of having nothing I can use he has…nothing I can use. However, if you got your game this past Christmas and are exotic poor he has the Ram, the MK 44’s and the sealed spine (the shiny hunter arms).

Today is Kahuna’s birthday! He is Greywrath on Xbox One so if you see him in Crucible today give a him a quick wave before you blast him off the map.

Bethesda announced a Fallout 4 bugfix/patch is in beta. If you play on PC you can head to Steam and try it out. They are working a huge list of features but my most anticipated are the settler status menu and that wires will no longer require copper. I am also pleased they are adjusting Preston and the never ending Minuteman quests. He is a fun companion but gets so much hate because of the settlement quests. For a full list of fixes and features check out the Fallout 4 forums .

I spent a good sized chunk of my caps on a cool gun so MacCready and I are running missions-for-pay to try and recoup the money and pick up crafting supplies. I need to increase my water production in Sanctuary but since it isn’t on the supply line I have to carry all the components in myself.

(Word of caution – don’t give MacCready a missile launcher unless you enjoy having the world explode in your face every time he sees a radroach).

I have been looking at The Division. From the website:

A devastating pandemic sweeps through New York City, and one by one, basic services fail. In only days, without food or water, society collapses into chaos. The Division, a classified unit of self-supported tactical agents, is activated. Leading seemingly ordinary lives among us, The Division agents are trained to operate independently of command, as all else fails. Fighting to prevent the fall of society, the agents will find themselves caught up in an epic conspiracy, forced to combat not only the effects of a manmade virus, but also the rising threat of those behind it…

The Division will open briefly for Xbox Beta on January 28th (the 29th for PC and PS4) and run till the 31st. The beta is enormous so Ubisoft is allowing it to be downloaded 48 hours before it opens for play. You can pre-order the game for a guaranteed beta key or sign up on the Division website and hope you are chosen.

I’m going to have another cup of coffee, watch the snow fall and play a few video games. Have a safe and happy weekend.

Never has a year of gaming felt more like ‘so many games, so little time‘ to me than 2015.

(minor spoilers for various games)

Dragon Age Inquisition released in late 2014 and we played it well into 2015. I still haven’t finished the Jaws of Hakkon DLC but I did manage to finish the main game as well as Descent and Trespasser. There were a few plot points I would argue fit POORLY with my Inquisition and I will never, ever pick up a shard in any play through again, but for the most part I really enjoyed the game. I may have lost an arm but I gained a puppy and a Cullen so it all balanced out.

Destiny also released in late 2014 and our Guardians are still protecting The Last City on earth. Destiny is part FPS, (first person shooter) part MMO and part Vegas Casino. When it succeeds we get the exquisite Vault of Glass and the happily Cayde-heavy The Taken King. When it fails we get the soul crushing grind of endlessly infusing exotics or the crappiness of removing paid content for players who don’t buy DLC.

We skipped Elder Scrolls Online when it first released on PC. It was just too much money and too big an investment in hardware for us at the time. When it ported to Xbox One last year we picked up a few copies and went adventuring in Tamriel. It has been a lot of fun but like most MMO’s it just requires more of a time commitment than I can spare. My youngest daughter and I tend to play it as a casual rpg where we are Khajiit princesses who save the Kingdom while riding giant saber cats.

Splatoon was huge in our house this year with both girls playing it. They are dedicated Nintendo fans and were excited to have a FSP (first squid painter) for themselves.

Nintendo also released The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes which has been the cause of more yelling in our house than any other game…ever. I am terrible at platformers but the girls are patient with me on those rare times we all play together. On the plus side, I will never stop being amused that we are saving a princess from bad fashion.

I haven’t played much Witcher 3:Wild Hunt but Kahuna is enjoying it. As much as I like the structure and graphics I can’t quite get enough interest to finish it. It is very much Geralt’s story, not mine and that affects my enjoyment of the game.

We also played Minecraft, Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer, Brothers a Tale of Two Sons, Majora’s Mask 3d, a horde of Toca Boca games and many Smash tournaments. I also spent some time modding Skyrim and wishing Dragon’s Dogma Online was available to play outside Japan.

I may never finish this game. I do play the main storyline a little but between tracking down matching sunglasses and hats for my settlement guards, killing giant mutant bugs and picking up every baseball I find (someone stop me.. please) Dogmeat and I progress very slowly. I will save my baby eventually but first I have to loot this duct tape… and cook this Mirelurk meat…and mod my combat shotgun…and build another bed…

This past week the PvP event ‘Iron Banner‘ ran on Destiny. I got a 320 Ghost shell, a 311 rocket launcher, a wolfswood bond for my Warlock (which I missed the first time it was offered) and several pieces of armor.

Iron Banner was kind of a mixed bag this time. If you were lucky enough to get good drops it was a decent event. If you were not it was an endless slogfest of lag and disappointment. At one point I got a postmortem kill notice while I was leaping around very much alive. My supers either killed everyone on the map or hit a player point blank and did no damage.

Lag…the ultimate opponent.

However, Greywrath and I had a good time. We ran a two player team for most games (at one point players from the clan got together and ran a full team for several matches). We were happy with our drops and amid the lag we both had some good matches. I even picked up a Phantom medal on Exodus Blue.

I didn’t think to record any of it. (next IB I will record stuff)

So, I popped over and found a cool vid from Sniper De Jure. This is on the Bannerfall map and the fact that he is running a gunslinger hunter had nothing to do with my choosing his vid. Nothing. Seriously.